


McKirk Will Be The McDeath Of Me

by doctorenterprise



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, F/F, F/M, Fem!Bones - Freeform, Fem!Kirk, Gen, M/M, Tumblr Prompt, anything and everything - Freeform, cisfem!bones, cisfem!jim, mckirk - Freeform, only occasionally, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 12,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorenterprise/pseuds/doctorenterprise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of responses to various prompts sent to me on tumblr. Always McKirk. There will be copious genderbending. There will be copious amounts of schmoop and angst and fluff and sexy times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Body Shots on the Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr prompt: *peeks in* are you still taking requests? Cuz I saw this: "I need Jim taking body shots off of Bones ok that’s what I need and I need Bones shivering at the touch of Jim’s warm, wet tongue and I need him arching and whining for more and Jim laps everything up off his skin before dragging him down for a bruising kiss only to taste the alcohol on Jim’s tongue" and I just can't imagine anyone writing it better than you.

He was stripped down to regulation black pants pushed almost indecently low on his hips, uniform shirt and boots lost to the casualties of the party hours ago. Lain out on the helm controls, skin slick with glittery oils and sweat and vodka, he was shaking apart at the touch of fingertips to his chest.

Jim stood above him, pupils blown wide and naked from the waist up, dangling a bottle of vodka from his fingertips like he could barely keep a grip on it. The music was loud, too loud to hear the murmurings of the rest of the party’s guests, but not so loud he couldn’t hear - or maybe he felt it - Jim’s moan wash over his skin like silk.

He had a slice of lemon between his teeth and he clenched down on it reflexively as a wet pool of vodka settled into his navel, Jim’s eyes focused on it’s destination like it was a homing beacon. Jim’s lips sagged apart and his eyes drooped so heavily McCoy could feel the arousal roll off his skin.

Jim’s eyes flashed to McCoy’s as he dragged his tongue over the salt on McCoy’s palm, pressing his lips to his palm and sucking in a filthy imitation of a kiss. McCoy moaned and fought to hold his hips still to avoid the spill of booze from his navel and Jim bent to his stomach, sucking the vodka up far too slowly and sensually to be anything other than a prelude to the rest of the night. His tongue dipped into McCoy’s navel and pulled a thrust into thin air from his rapidly withering control. He’d never been so hard in his life as he arched his back into Jim’s tongue.

Jim’s hand slithered over his wait to hold onto the opposite hip for leverage as he continued to lick and suck at the skin of his abdomen, brushing over his cock in the least subtle move Jim had pulled all night. McCoy ground up into the touch and buried a hand in Jim’s hair, pulling and holding him still at the same time.

Jim slithered up his torso, maintaining maximum skin contact and breathing in ragged puffs against McCoy’s chest and making him shake. He dipped his face to McCoy’s and stole a kiss as he gathered his lemon slice with a hazy smirk. The moment he pulled the lemon from between his lips, he had them pressed under McCoy’s jaw, licking kisses against the soft skin he discovered.

McCoy was so completely lost in the sensation of Jim’s tongue in places it had never been that he didn’t register Jim sliding a leg over his hips to straddle him until their erections brushed through their pants and they released twin groans. 

Jim’s elbows rested on either side of McCoy’s head and his knees trapped his thighs in place as they rolled their hips together slowly, gasping into each other’s mouths. McCoy’s fingernails left indents in the skin of Jim’s back and Jim’s mouth left bruises on McCoy’s jawline.

He knew they’d regret the public viewing of their first kiss in the morning, but right now he was loose with tequila and dizzy with arousal of Jim’s hips rolling slowly against his. The music drowned out their audience and he focused solely on dragging more sounds from Jim’s lips for the rest of the night.


	2. for jules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones is getting older. He minds. Jim doesn't.

Bones stared at his reflection in the mirror and reached a hand up to trace the deepening lines beside his eyes, frowning as the skin shifted easily beneath his fingertips. It had been a long time since he’d really looked at himself and he wasn’t sure he was happy with what he saw. Tomorrow was his 40th birthday and, if he were to be completely honest with himself, the very thought of it made his heart pound and filled his veins with dread.  
40 years old.

Four whole decades.

It wouldn’t be so bad, he reasoned, if Jim wasn’t 32, wrinkle-free, and sporting a head full of vibrant blond hair while he sat next to Jim at 40 years old, laugh lines etched into his face, and silver starting to litter the hair at his temples. And he was soft. He looked down at his bare chest and stomach discontentedly. He was squishy around the middle and arms, unlike his shiny boyfriend eight years his junior, all muscle and firm skin.

He sighed.

He was old.

Looking away from the mirror, he left the bathroom and headed into the kitchen.

He was a doctor, damn it. He knew how to avoid all of this. He knew that vegetables and running and lots of water would slow down this aging thing he’d begun to speed towards. So why had he let himself get this far without working to maintain himself?

Before he knew it, he would be 50!

He slumped down in the couch of their shared living quarters aboard the Enterprise. He was an old man and it was time he started to accept that.

The door to their quarters swished open and Jim came barreling through it, all energy and smiles and bright blue eyes.

“Hey, Bones!” Jim exclaimed happily, flopping down on the couch next to him. “I see you’re already half naked! Excellent idea. Great time saver.”

He immediately pawed at Bones’ black uniform pants as he plastered himself over Bones’ lap eagerly.

Except…

Jim pulled away, surprised and confused.

“How are you not horny right now? I’ve been horny for like six hours. I sent you eleven dirty pictures from my command chair and told you I was gonna ride you like a horse when I got home.”

“I’m just not really interested right now, Jim.”

“Aw,c'mon, man!” Jim whined, stretching out over the couch to lay with his head in Bones’ lap. “You can’t just lay around our living room half naked and expect me not to jump you! Pre-birthday sex!”

“Can we not talk about my birthday, please?”

Jim sat up and stared at him with squinted eyes.

“Are you doing that thing where you think you’re too old for me?” he asked knowingly. Bones flushed and looked away. Jim bounced back across the couch and straddled his boyfriend and best friend again. “Hey. You need to take a page out of my book, Bones. I think you’re really hot. Big, strong doctor with his sexy hair and great ass. You should be on a hospital soap opera.”

“Jim…”

“No, seriously. I’m the captain. If I say you’re hot, you don’t get to argue unless you wanna spend the night in the brig. And I am not coming down there to have brig sex with you, so say goodbye to your birthday BJ.”

“Birthday BJ?” Bones asked incredulously. Jim grinned devilishly.

“The first of many birthday themed sexual favours,” he confirmed. “I have a list. We start the morning with your Birthday BJ, move on to Breakfast Buns where I finger you and you try to eat waffles, then there’s Morning Meat and you get to fuck me, then Lunchtime Lick-”

“Oh my god, Jim, shut up.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t ruin the surprise.”

Bones pressed his palms to his eyes and shook his head. “Jesus, kid. Jesus.”

“But, you know, if you’re too old or whatever, I guess I could do this all by myself…”

Bones growled and lunged for Jim, who laughed and went willingly.

“Got anything for the night before?”

Jim grinned.


	3. found your number in the clothes i bought wanna go out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McKirk phone number in used clothing au

Leonard had been sprawled out on the shitty bed in his motel room for less than five seconds when his phone started to ring.  
He ignored it.

It kept ringing.

Groaning, he flailed around for the offending device on the bedside table and answered it.

“What?” he grunted irritably. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Uh…hey,” a confused, unfamiliar voice said on the other end. “I, uh, found your phone number? In a pair of pants I bought. And I thought they might be your pants…”

Leonard sat up immediately.

“My pants?”

“Yeah. Um…the note says ‘Daddy, Mommy gave away all your clothes but I’m putting a note in them so someone will tell you where they went’, followed by this phone number. Anyways, I figured it was a weird situation and you probably need your clothes back, but also I absolutely have to know what the fuck is going on here.”

“Where are you?”

“Where - oh, I’m at my house.”

“Where is that?”

“Are you going to stalk and kill me?”

“No.”

“Right, well. I don’t really believe that, no offense, so how about we meet at the thrift store I found your pants in? Precautionary actions, you understand.”

Leonard rolled his eyes. “Alright, tell me when and where and I’ll get my ass over there.”

The guy on the other end rattled off an address to meet him at in the next half hour and said he’d be the one wearing Leonard’s khaki chinos and Led Zeppelin t-shirt. 

Sure enough, twenty-five minutes later, Leonard rolled up to the doors of the tiny thrift store two blocks from his old house and saw another man wearing his favourite shirt and the pants his mother had bought him for his birthday last year. 

When Leonard finally managed to remove himself from his car and make his way inside, the other man broke into a huge grin and Leonard’s heart stopped.

He was beautiful.

Wild blond hair, big blue eyes, freckles all across his tanned nose, and an impish grin that Leonard already knew was going to get him into heaps of trouble.

“Hey, daddy!” the kid called out, clearly trying to make a joke and ending up horrifying both of them in a public parking lot. “Oh. Oh, man. Let’s forget I said that.”

“Deal,” Leonard smiled against his will, extending his hand to shake. The other man - no more than 23, maybe 24, waved his hand away and grabbed him in a giant hug.

“We are way past handshakes, Bones. I’m wearing your clothes and you look like you haven’t slept in two days. We are having a morning after moment without any sex,” the kid winked. “I’m Jim, by the way.”

“Leonard.”

Jim made an unpleasant face and shook his head. “Leonard. Ugh. Was your mother some sort of sadist? I’m gonna call you Bones.”

“Why?”

“Because I currently own all of your clothing and you are stripped down to your bare bones,” Jim grinned. Leonard huffed. “Um, my car is right over here. I have all your stuff…”

“I suppose you want to know the story in exchange for my possessions?”

“Um, duh.”

Leonard sighed. “My wife started fucking my best friend because I was always at work and forgot our anniversary three years running and when I found out, she threw me out of the house and donated everything I owned. Now I’m living in a motel over on Bailey Street and the water barely gets room temperature and I can’t see my baby girl, who is apparently the only one on my side in all of this, and some hipster kid bought all of my clothes. That’s where I am right now.”

“Wow,” Jim said, eyes wide. “Your life really sucks, huh?”

“Currently, yes.”

“So do you want your stuff back?”

“God, yes,” Leonard breathed, eyeing the trunk of Jim’s car eagerly. He’d been wearing the same pair of jeans and two shirts for a week now. He needed his stuff back.

Jim popped the trunk of his car to reveal bag upon bags of Leonard’s clothing. Relief washed over him and his knees weakened at the sight of his worldly possessions being returned to him at last. It was more than he’d ever expected to have again.

“Let’s get this stuff into your car,” Jim said. They loaded everything together and Jim poked fun at him for his Captain America underwear, but Leonard was too relieved to be bothered. When they were done, he shook Jim’s hand and thanked him before sliding into the driver’s seat of his car. Then Jim climbed into the passenger seat and looked at him expectantly.

“What?”

“Well, I’m taking you out for dinner because your life is crap,” Jim explained. “And also you’re, like, the hottest thing on two legs in the this town? So I’m gonna board that train if you’re willing to punch my ticket. Steak and bourbon with a side of backseat car sex, doctor?”

“How’d you know I was a doctor?”

“Do non-doctors have stethoscopes in their consoles?” Jim asked, holding up Leonard’s med school stethoscope, now just a souvenir. “Because if you’re not a doctor, I am very interested in getting in on these kinks of yours.”

“I’m a doctor.”

“Cool. I drive trains. So how about that dinner and sex thing we were talking about?”

Leonard grinned. “All aboard?”

“Oh, hell, yes.”


	4. face sitting galore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim begging cisfem!bones to sit on his face. Dommy Bones!

“No, absolutely not,” Bones refused in a tone that left no room for argument, which of course meant that Jim was about to argue. She cross her arms under bare breasts and glared at Jim’s naked self on the bed until he thought his balls might make a tactical retreat. “It’s dangerous. You could suffocate. I could accidentally choke you.”

“But I want you to,” Jim whined, curling a large, warm hand around her hip and drawing her back in the direction of the bed he was sprawled on. “Please? I promise I’ll tell you if I start to die or something.”

“Right, because you have always proved to be trustworthy in situations where you might die.”

“I’m not gonna die for sex, Bones. I mean, what a way to go, but I actually really like having sex with you, so my instinct is to prolong that experience as long as possible.”

“You’re doing a real bang up job of that, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid when I’m trying to seduce you.”

Bones rolled her eyes and grudgingly crawled back onto the bed, tossing a leg over Jim’s hip and straddling him. The smug grin on his face almost made her want to kiss his cheek goodnight and then roll over and go to sleep, but the warmth that always pooled in her belly at the sight of a naked and aroused Jim Kirk distracted her from her pettier pursuits.

“You’ll tell me if you can’t breathe?” she asked him, half skeptical and half warning him of imminent death if he didn’t. He nodded enthusiastically, eyes bright with anticipation. “Alright. Fine. The shit I do for you…”

“I guarantee you’ll like this too,” Jim chattered excitedly as he lay flat on his back and scooted down a few inches to give her room. He guided her hips as she crawled up the bed to straddle his face, reaching for the headboard for stability. “Trust me, you have exactly the right amount of persistent irritation towards me to absolutely love being in a position to potentially strangle me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes, looking down her front to gauge what angle would be best. “Are you sure?”

“Hell, yeah.”

She lowered her hips over his face slowly, biting her lip as she did so to avoid crushing her idiot boyfriend in the process. Apparently too slowly for his liking, as he grabbed her hips and slammed her down onto his face with a long, slow moan.

Christ, she thought as he sucked on her clit delightedly. Christ, he was good at this. Oh, hell…she ground down onto his mouth and panted against the need to come far too early in the game for her liking. Yeah, she’d probably end up coming again, but this was too damn good to give up just yet…

The feel of his large hands gripping each of her ass cheeks firmly, couple with the hot, wet drag of his tongue between her legs, had her dangling over the edge by the tips of her fingers.

Then she glanced down - down into his eyes, perfectly centered between her breasts as she watched him work. He looked drunk, high as fuck as he submitted to her merciless grinding against his lips - he looked like there was nothing better than the taste of her juices while trapped between her thighs.

She came harder than she’d ever done before, fisting a great clump of his wild blond hair to pull his face even closer to her clit as she rode him hard.

The second she came down, shaking and lips still parted with the end of a scream, she scrambled down his body to swallow his cock.

His pathetic little mewl of desperation set the brand new spark in her chest into a full inferno.

Yeah, she thought. Yeah, she could get used to having Jim Kirk at her mercy.


	5. fear of doctors - angsty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: jim being terrified of doctors and bones doesn’t realise it’s genuine fear so he makes the hypos as painful as pos and just passes of his shaking for adrenaline or something but in reality he’s barely holding it together because bones is just making him more terrifedof doctors and hospital bc he always got told hypos shouldnt hurt and so he thinks bones is doing it bc he hates him and whnever he has a physical, he locks himself in his rooms bc hes terrified and he gets flashbacks to after tarsus

Contrary to popular belief, Jim was not the one to latch onto Bones the minute he sat down in the shuttle to California. He wasn’t the one who decided they would be each other’s best friends and do everything together and turn themselves into halves of a whole. Sure, he’d entertained the notion for all of ten minutes, mind racing as he imagined all they could be together and all they could do, until McCoy - already christened ‘Bones’ - asked him what track he was going for and told Jim he was already a doctor and just needed the xeno-shit to go into space.

Jim’s racing mind had slammed to a standstill immediately, blanking at the same time his face drained of colour.

Doctor.

Just like that, thoughts of going through this massive life change with someone to share it with flew out the window. No way could he handle this. No way could he look at McCoy and think friend when his heart was beating out a steady rhythm of danger danger danger.

So he blew off the ranting, half-drunk man he’d had barely-formed dreams of standing beside for the next three years and dove head first into organizing his schooling and career. He immediately took charge of his housing arrangements, tuition, class scheduling, and after a few days, spent so much time perfecting his every assignment that he came out of the first week with record marks.

Pike laughed and said he’d told him so. Jim had smiled weakly, already itching with the loss of a friendship he’d never even had. A month in, Jim was still top of his class and confused as hell about why he still thought about the four hours he’d spent beside a man who turned out to be nothing but sheer terror wrapped in flannel and bourbon.

Three days after that, McCoy had shown up at his door and dragged him out for a night on the town - as reparation for barfing all over his shoes, McCoy informed him. 

Six months after that, Jim had the friendship he’d considered briefly on that shuttle over half a year ago. Bones had proved to be a whole hell of a lot more than just a doctor prepared to tear him apart at a moment’s notice. He was funny as hell, only drank (and therefore only bought) the good stuff, and frequently gave Jim much-needed affectionate smacks upside the head. And he smiled at Jim like he was the greatest thing on the planet, which was something Jim had never seen directed at him before.

But the universe had a way of taking things away from Jim whenever he got too comfortable, so, naturally, it took Bones away the moment Jim settled comfortably into a regular routine with his best friend.

The first time it happened, Jim had spent his second birthday at the Academy in a pub on campus, putting his fist through the nose of anyone who so much as mentioned the USS Kelvin to his face. He’d wound up on his ass outside the bar, bleeding and shaking and definitely not crying, fumbling for his comm with bruise-numb fingers.

He commed Bones and begged for him to come get me, Bones, I need you, I need, I need…

And Bones had come for him, because that’s what best friends do when they get a rambling voicemail of a broken voice at 2 o'clock in the morning.

And Bones had taken one look at him slumped against the dirty outside of the bar and immediately hauled him to medical, the absolute last place on earth that Jim ever wanted to see the inside of. He sat Jim on a bed while he ranted, growling about death wishes and rash decisions and idiocy 'coming out the ying-yang’ while Jim shivered and held himself around the stomach. He jabbed painkillers against Jim’s neck none-too-gently and rubbed alcohol over Jim’s cuts too roughly, leaving a raw stinging sensation behind. 

He frogmarched Jim back to their dorm with a tight grip around his bicep, oblivious to the way Jim was too quiet and unresponsive.

He left him there alone while he finished up his shift at the hospital, with orders to call him if Jim’s head got worse and to drink lots of water.

Jim fell apart the moment he heard the hiss of the door closing behind the doctor. Sobs broke out of his chest and shook his shoulders as he curled himself into a ball in the corner of his bed, wedged between the wall and his pillows as he tried to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. He closed his eyes against images of his time on Tarsus IV, and fought the memory of too many punctures in his skin from doctors only interested in creating a superior race that could survive the conditions there. 

He vomited up the water Bones had forced down his throat before leaving. Several minutes of trembling in his soiled bed later, he hauled himself weakly onto his feet and took his sheets down to the washers and then climbed into an ice cold shower with the hope that it would shock him back to now instead of then.

He never breathed a word of his breakdown to Bones, who questioned his sudden ambition to wash his sheets for the first time in weeks with a raised eyebrow, but he knew that things had changed between them. They were not friends - he’d been right the first time he changed his opinion on the doctor. He was just the same as all the rest, which meant he was willing to hurt instead of help and he had no intention of kindness toward Jim.

A simple cue from Bones the next day, an invitation to join him for lunch in the Sciences building cafeteria, and Jim knew how things would be now. They’d continue to coexist like they had been for over a year, but at least Jim knew the secret now. 

Bones didn’t like him - and Jim knew this because years of therapy had drilled it into him that medical attention wasn’t supposed to hurt and Bones had hurt him so much - but Jim was apparently somehow useful to him, so he would stick around.

Jim was careful to be quieter, less obtrusive into Bones’ life, after that. He didn’t insinuate himself into the doctor’s plans and was always sure to pose his need for personal comfort or contact as requests instead of statements after that. He never told Bones they were going out or watching a movie or having a drink - always, always, always asked if he wanted to do something.

Bones said no a lot, but Jim took what he could get, which was more than he’d ever been given before. What did it matter if Bones didn’t carry the same affection or need for Jim as Jim did for him? They both got what they needed in the end.

The day Jim went down in his close quarters combat class at the hands of an unskilled partner, shattering his ankle in the process, his first thought was no doctors, please, no doctors.

When Bones showed up as the doctor on call for the athletics complex that day, Jim’s world shattered.

He struggled into a sitting position, the best offensive position he could manage without the use of his left leg. The moment Bones knelt down beside him, he shoved as hard as he could, planting his fist underneath Bones’ jaw with as much force as he could muster. The adrenaline flooding his veins eased the pain of his ankle and quickened the swing of his fist to the point that he felt something in Bones’ jaw give at the point of contact.

It earned him a Jesus Christ, Jim, what the fuck was that? and a scowl so furious that it shrivelled every ounce of fight inside of him. As soon as Bones saw him deflate, he edged closer to look at Jim’s ankle, frowning and then grimacing when he pulled back the pant leg.

Gonna need surgery, he told Jim. It’s not a clean break.

And Jim absolutely lost it - screaming, thrashing, sobbing - as he begged Bones to please, please, don’t do it, I’ll be fine, please, Bones, don’t do it. But his pleas fell on deaf ears as Bones jabbed a hypo into his neck, sedating him just enough to calm him down and get him on a stretcher. He begged sleepily through the haze and the tears, pleading for Bones to see reason - he didn’t need surgery, he’d be fine, please.

He whimpered a last ditch beg for anesthesia because please, Bones, I can’t take it, I need you to put me under, please…

And Bones surprised him with a soft brush of fingers over his forehead and a concerned frown. He asked why on earth Jim thought he’d be receiving major surgery without anesthesia, all while cupping Jim’s cheek so tenderly it burned.

Jim whimpered about doctors on Tarsus and too many needles and surgical experiments with painkillers but no anesthesia. He confessed weakly to being told that doctors weren’t supposed to hurt him, but Bones did, he prodded too harshly and took control of Jim’s injured body without asking and scrubbed at open wounds with painful disinfectants. He whispered shamefully that he knew Bones didn’t like him like he liked Bones and it was okay because Jim never asked to be loved, just to be kept company, but please, Bones, please don’t hurt me.

Then Bones dripped a tear onto Jim’s sweaty workout t-shirt and told him to shut up, that’s insane, and if his leg wasn’t so mangled, they’d be having a long conversation about what Jim just said right now. As it was, Jim needs to get his leg fixed as soon as possible and when he sees Jim starting to panic, Bones reassures him that he’s too close to perform the surgery himself, so someone else is going to do it.

He kissed Jim’s forehead and whispered that he’d be okay soon and told him they were going to sit down and chat for a while as soon as Jim felt better because there were some things that needed setting straight.

Jim went in to the hospital more willingly than he’d done since he was fourteen years old.


	6. 5+1 smiling photos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> twofacedjanus prompt for 5 photos of Bones smiling with Jim, plus one photo of them smiling on their wedding day.

Jim’s favourite picture of them was Bones’ absolute most hated one, as his tastes seemed to run that way. It had been taken on Jim’s personal PADD on the shuttle to California, Jim smiling like a particularly violent looking maniac with his bloodied lip and bruised cheek and Bones having plastered on a fake smile to shut up the damn kid who hadn’t stopped regaling him with tales of his heroics for hours on end, his eyes slightly deranged and his cheeks pale with terror.  
Jim loves it because he gets to use it as proof that he’s been making Bones smile since the very first day. Bones hates it because he looks like a goddamn psychopath with a bad case of food poisoning.

-

There’s another photo that hangs in their shared (read: Bones’, though mostly appropriated by Jim in their second semester) dorm at the Academy. It’s a simple photo of Jim in a white t-shirt and Bones wearing a half-buttoned blue oxford with the sleeves rolled up. It was taken eleven months into their friendship by an eager tourist looking to ‘help out the happy couple’. They hadn’t been anywhere near romantically involved at that point, but it’s a good picture and they both agree they look happy, so there it hangs on the wall behind Bones’ bed, where Jim can stare at it every morning as the sun comes up.

-

Gaila is in possession of what is potentially the cutest photo of them in existence. Three nights after their first date at the Academy, Jim still hadn’t managed to change their room code to keep out his regular booty calls and Gaila found them curled up together in Jim’s bed, Jim sprawled over Bones’ chest with a sleepy smile on his face. Bones isn’t much different in the photo - one arm behind his head and one wrapped loosely around Jim’s waist as he smiles into the sleeve of his shirt. She only ever shows them a copy, too enamoured of the stolen moment of peace to let them take it away altogether.

-

There’s a photo of Spock and Uhura dancing at their wedding, eyes focused on each other, and Uhura looks stunning in a fitted white lace gown. Spock seems to notice it keenly, if the stunned expression of love and adoration on his face is anything to go by. In the background, though, a little blurry and out of focus, Jim and Bones are laughing their asses off as they slow dance to the beautiful Vulcan music playing at the reception. It might not be of them directly, but there’s hardly a photograph containing one of them alone, let alone one of them being anything but completely happy together.

-

Cupcake might fancy himself as anything but frosted, sweet, or pink, but the security tape snapshot he’s got saved under a file called “Classified”, meaning “Please Don’t Look, It’s Embarrassing”, says otherwise. He’d been monitoring the security feeds on the Enterprise when the Captain woke up after Khan. He’d witnessed that doctor fighting a smile and he’d seen the Captain fighting to give one. They had both succeeded only minimally, but their lips were turned up and their eyes were shining.

Cupcake knew what it felt like to see someone again when you thought they were gone forever.

He’d saved that moment and hidden it away where only he would think to look.

Happiness like that needed to be preserved.

-

There’s a sort of terrifying shine in the Kirk-McCoy household in Georgia. It covers the mantle over their honest-to-god fireplace and gets dusted every other day by a retired Starfleet Captain. 

Upon that mantle rest three photographs - one of two men’s arms curled around a baby girl, one of those same arms curled around a tiny boy, and one of two men in dress uniform smiling delightedly in the California sun.

It’s twenty years old now, but the same light brightens the eyes of the galaxy’s most talented doctor and bravest captain even now. They doubt it will ever dim even the slightest amount.


	7. shy bones everywhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones being super shy and adorable with a crush on Jim.

Jim, being Jim, doesn’t notice anything is different for ages after it is. Because Bones is usually a hardass and smartass and a bit of an asshole, but suddenly he isn’t and it all seems to stop around the time Bones finally confesses his feelings.  
It starts with them meeting for lunch after the first night they fumble excitedly and tell each other they want so much more. Jim comms Bones and asks him if he wants to grab a burger after class and gets back a ‘if you want to?’ instead of the usual 'I’ll be late - tomatoes, onions, mustard, pickles, cheese’.

So they meet at their favourite burger place just off campus, the one with the awesome mint chocolate shakes, and Bones doesn’t say a word through the whole meal. Jim chatters on and on about his flight sim that morning and how he totally aced the landing procedures again. Bones chews quietly and nods and smiles and blushes like a damn schoolgirl. He pays for Jim’s lunch and flushes when Jim plants a kiss on his cheek on the way out the door.

Later that week, he shows up for Thursday movie night with Jim’s favourite takeout and a bottle of wine instead of their usual bourbon and popcorn feast. Jim grins and pulls him through the door into a furious makeout session because he could really get used to this. They don’t really make it to the movie, but Jim has plenty of fun without it, anyway. He gets Bones naked and hot and eager and then lays back to enjoy the product of his fun. 

Bones is so gentle and careful that Jim thinks he’s almost uncertain, but that’s insane because it’s Bones, who had never been uncertain about anything ever and especially not when it comes to his abilities to manipulate Jim’s body into doing whatever he wants it to. He’s patched up more holes and broken bones than Jim can count, so why should he think he’s not fully equipped to take Jim apart, as well?

As it turns out, he’s just as equipped to make Jim scream for nice reasons as he is for medical ones.

Things get really interesting, and Jim finally starts to notice, when they go out to their usual Saturday bar - and the number of usual things they have really should have been an indication of their romantic compatibility, to be entire truthful - and Jim finds himself of the familiar receiving end of some pretty heavy flirting.

She’s a pretty little thing with wide brown eyes and skin that looks like milk chocolate. She’s completely intent on taking Jim home with her, leaning in to whisper in his ear and brushing her quite frankly gorgeous breasts against his arm, buying him a drink and winking when he drinks it. Jim’s not in the least bit interested - well, okay, he’d take her home to share if Bones gave him the slightest inclination of interest - but she does’t seem to get it.

And Bones - Bones is not interested in sharing her at all and, if the look on his face in any indication, he’s even less interested in sharing Jim. 

He doesn’t say anything. He just turns scarlet and looks the other way while Jim endures a pretty little thing hanging off his arm and trying to get his full attention with absolutely no help from his shiny new boyfriend.

Because they are boyfriends now, Jim is sure. Bones kisses him goodnight every day and tells him he’s beautiful and Jim makes sure to bring Bones a coffee on his lunch breaks at the hospital and send him frequent updates on his life because he knows how Bones worries. Those are boyfriend things and Jim has never doubted a thing in his life less than he doubts their absolute commitment to each other.

Bones seems less sure, he thinks worriedly.

So he reaches across the table and threads his fingers through Bones’, then turns to the girl beside him and tells her she’s very pretty, but he’s quite happy with his gorgeous boyfriend and that’s unlikely to change.

She leaves him alone after that.

Bones absolutely does not leave him alone.

In fact, they’re out of their so fast Jim can’t even remember if they left any money for their drinks or not. He’s expecting a speedy return trip to one of their dorms and a possessive fuck against a wall, but instead Bones stops just outside the radius of loud music from the bar and kisses him so sweetly it makes his knees weak.

There’s a lot of stammering and blushing, but several minutes later, Bones has conveyed that he just really, really, really likes Jim and he wants to be together for the foreseeable and unforeseeable future and would that be alright with Jim? Because he’s not sure if he’s got any actual claim over Jim or not, but he’d really like to at least hold the monogamy card, if that’s okay?

It definitely would be, Jim thinks. It actually sounds like exactly what he thought they’d already agreed to, but Bones clearly needs some more reassurance.

He hopes the slow, lazy kiss and the embrace that threatens to morph them into one person conveys his feelings on the matter.

It does.


	8. under-negotiated deep-throating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: but bones having a really big cock and jim can’t take it all the way down without feeling like he’s dying, so one day Jim gets on the bed and hangs his head over the side so his throat is opened all the way and Bones just fucks into his throat, all the way and it feels like fucking heaven and he places a hand on Jims throat because he can feel and /see/ the outline of his cock when he thrusts into Jims mouth, whose whimpering and getting off on having bones fucking his throat and face

It actually started out innocently enough.

Bones going about his normal morning routine - getting dressed, brushing his teeth, having a coffee - while Jim lay flopped out on the bed like he owned the place (he didn’t) and whining about how he wished he could sleep in every day (he did). Jim had his head hanging over the edge of the mattress as he lay on his back, watching Bones pull on his cadet reds upside down and leering at him the whole time.

“No, Jim.”

“Boooones.”

“We do not have time for sex this morning.”

“But I want to.”

“Maybe if you hauled your lazy ass outta bed earlier in the mornings, this wouldn’t be a problem,” Bones pointed out with a raised eyebrow. Jim humphed childishly. “Then again, how on earth would I cope with Jim Kirk needing a full day’s attention every day?”

“I do not need that much attention!”

“Yesterday, I forgot to call you after class and ask how your sim went and you didn’t talk to me until I brought home dinner.”

“Well…”

Jim huffed again and stretched, long and sleepy as he continued to watch Bones do the opposite of what he wanted - put on clothes.

That’s when Bones caught sight of the length of Jim’s throat, all long lines and pretty hollows at the base. It made him do a double take, mostly because the image of him walking over to Jim all sprawled out on the bed and shoving his cock down the kid’s outstretched throat flashed through his mind.

He shivered. Jim noticed.

“You’re horny.”

“No.”

“You are, you lying bastard. Come here. I’ll blow you real quick and you won’t be late for class.”

“Jim…”

“Please, Bones,” Jim begged, palming his half-hard cock through his sleep pants. It stood out enticingly through the thin fabric and Bones felt his resolve waver. “It’ll be good, I promise.”

Bones pressed his lips together firmly and weighed the pros and cons - on one hand, he’d be going to class later than he wanted. On the other, he’d be going sated and relaxed and much more likely to pay attention than daydream about the sight of Jim’s cock through his pajamas.

“Fine, but make it quick,” he agreed, hastily unbuttoning his pants and shoving them down around his ass to access his cock.

“I always do,” Jim chirped cheerfully, grinning. It slid off his face a moment later. “I mean - that’s not what I - I’ve got great stamina - Bones -”

“Shut up,” Bones ordered, tapping Jim’s cheek to make him open up. “We don’t have all day.”

“God, I love your cock,” Jim moaned, squirming on the mattress and creating just the right kind of eager show to full harden Bones’ mostly-hard cock. “It’s so big and hot and it always chokes me, but I love it…”

He opened his mouth, still looking at Bones upside down on the mattress and moaned delightedly around the head of Bones’ cock when it passed his lips. God, Jim was good at this, Bones thought. So good it didn’t even bother him that Jim struggled with more than a few inches of his cock each time he went down on him. He’d had this problem with every one of his sexual partners before - his dick was just too thick to properly deepthroat and Jim, though certainly daring, had never managed it, either.

He rocked his hips into Jim’s mouth and groaned deeply as he hit the back of Jim’s outstretched throat, enjoying the feel of his muscles contracting around the heck of his cock. He reached down and smoothed the tips of his fingers over the bulge of Jim’s throat lovingly, taken in by the sight of the perfect contours of his neck. 

And then Jim did the unthinkable and highly inadvisable and grabbed Bones’ ass cheeks to pull him in forcefully, slamming Bones’ cock down his throat until his balls hit Jim’s nose.

Bones gasped as his hips stuttered further forward at the sensation, never mind Jim’s tightly stretched lips and quickly reddening face. He stared down at the enormous bulge of Jim’s throat and choked out a sob, pressing down on the skin to feel his own cock stuffed inside his best friend’s airway.

He thrust furiously once, twice, a third time, and came hard down Jim’s throat with a shout and both palms on Jim’s chest to hold himself up.

As soon as he could see and think clearly again, he eased his cock from Jim’s lips and shook with pleasure and horror at the sight of Jim’s red face and leaking eyes. Both of their chests heaved with the strain of their encounter and Bones fell to his knees beside Jim, immediately checking his vital signs and prodding at his neck for signs of swelling or internal bleeding.

“Christ, Jim, that was stupid,” he cursed, fussing over Jim’s trembling body. “I know you don’t like not being capable of something, but goddamnit, that was so dangerous!”

“You liked it,” Jim rasped, tear-red eyes glinting with mischief. “You came so fast…you loved it, Bones…”

“That’s - that’s - you could have choked to death! You could have suffocated!”

“I liked it, too.”

“What?!”

“I liked it,” Jim whispered hoarsely, palming at his crotch. The swell of a half-hard cock was gone now and horror ripped through Bones’ chest at the thought of traumatizing Jim. Until Jim pulled down his pajamas to reveal come-splattered underwear and a still-twitching cock. “I really liked it, Bones.”

“It was still dangerous.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“I know and…” Bones sighed. He quickly shucked off his uniform and crawled into bed beside Jim, curling his hand gently around Jim’s recently abused throat and snuggling in close to his side. “I know. We both liked it. It was dangerous, Jim, and we’ll be taking proper precautions and giving proper warnings if we want to do it again, but we both liked it.”

“I told you it was okay.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Bones huffed. “I’m missing class to make sure you don’t die, so be grateful and quiet and stop talking until your vocal chords stop sounding like you’ve chainsmoked three packs a day for fifty years.”

“I love you, too, Bones.”

“Shhh.”


	9. insecure bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: could you maybe write something for me if you have the time and motivation? / bones is insecure about his body the first time he and jim want to have sex….jim shows him how much he loves his older boyfriend.

It’s not like he has any right to complain about his relationship with Jim. Christ, the kid is gorgeous - all smooth skin, summer ocean blue eyes, and pure life. The very fact that he has any interest in placing parts of his body in close proximity to parts of Leonard’s body should put him over the damn moon, but there’s always a catch.

See, Jim isn’t interested in simply being near Leonard’s body. He wants to be in, on, around, and one with it. And it makes sense, too. Jim is an energetic young man in his sexual prime. He should be getting fucked regularly and well, damn it. Leonard’s just not sure if Jim truly knows what he’s getting into when he says he wants all of that from his shiny new doctor boyfriend.

After all, Leonard is divorced, a father, and pushing thirty. He’s got wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, skin that sits just a little lower than it used to around his middle, and his goddamn balls have been hanging lower than he hoped they were would lately. To say he’s past his prime is an understatement - Jocelyn was happy to make sure he knew it.

She’d pointed out his flaws quietly and passed them off as backhanded compliments during the final years of their marriage. She’d jokingly pinch at his side and tease him about the extra skin there and then laughingly say that at least he still had a head full of dark hair. She’d buy him long-sleeved shirts in the summer and tell him it was because she didn’t think he wanted to show off the lack of definition in his arms, which wasn’t his fault, of course not, honey, you just don’t have time to work out when you’re always at work. She routinely huffed when he couldn’t get it up after 48 hour shifts at the hospital and told him at least he had the hands of a surgeon to keep her satisfied.

Of course, his fingers were no substitute for his best friend’s cock, apparently, because he’d found her fucking him in their bed six hours before he filed for divorce. She’d simply told him she needed someone to keep her satisfied. That person was Clay, his best friend from high school, quarterback on their school team, personal trainer at their town’s local gym. Clay, with the flawless body he’d never had.

So, no, Leonard wasn’t thrilled about Jim getting into his clothes. He passed it off as being tired or having homework or teasing Jim about his inhuman sex drive.

Except, when he finally lost his cool and snapped at Jim to stop being such a needy slut, he watched the light fade from his favourite blue eyes and felt his heart squeeze with horror.

“Jim - no, Jim, I’m sorry - wait -” he begged as Jim turned on his heel and made for the door, shoulders tight and head ducked angrily. He leaped in front of the door to block Jim’s path, grabbing him around the shoulders desperately. “God, Jim, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it at all. Christ, I’m sorry.”

“Just move so I can go be a needy slut somewhere else,” Jim sneered, shoving him away. “For fuck’s sake, if you’re so repulsed by me, why didn’t you just say so?”

“I’m not, Jim, I swear,” Leonard begged. “Look - I’m just…I’m a lot older than you are, Jim. I’ve got more miles on me than you’re used to. You’re always taking home these pretty young things and I’m just - not those things. I’m getting old and I’ve never been all that pretty, okay? I don’t want you to see that and…”

“You think I’d leave you because you’re older than I am?” Jim exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “In case you haven’t noticed, Bones, I’ve got a pretty sizable ass and I’ve got more than enough grey hairs for a guy who’s barely broken 24.”

“What?”

“I’m no supermodel, Bones,” Jim shook his head. “And I wouldn’t expect you to be, but goddamn have you even looked at yourself before?”

“What?”

“You’re so hot,” Jim frowned, pushing him back against the door. “How do you not see that? You’ve got this hair that I obsess over thinking about you blowing me as I try to hold onto it, but damn, it’s just so soft I can’t get a grip. And every time you put on your cadet reds, all I can do is sit there and drool about how broad your shoulders are. You have a great ass, Bones, okay? You’re hot.”

“Jim…” he sighed, burying his face in Jim’s warm shoulder. “I’m wrinkly and pudgy in the middle and sometimes I can’t even get it up.”

“Bones, seriously, you’re a fucking human. I have tummy rolls, okay? Only insane people don’t have tummy rolls. People who haven’t heard of pizza or spaghetti or cake. I have heard of all of those and am currently in a long term relationship with chocolate. And wrinkles, Bones? Everybody gets wrinkles. Are you gonna stop thinking I’m pretty when I’ve got laugh lines and my neck is all weird and saggy?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then chill, man,” Jim chuckled, pressing a kiss to the side of Leonard’s head. “I think you’re hot and sexy and I can’t wait to get my hands on you. I’ve been spending way too much time in the shower the last few months.”

Leonard flushed bright red at the thought of Jim jerking off to him. Sure, Jim was shameless, but to think of him imagining Leonard’s body as he brought himself off? That was a whole different kind of embarrassing.

It made him want to give Jim some new material for his showers.

“Bones, can I please get in your pants now? Because I feel like I’ve been hard for like seven years and nobody has offered to take care of it for me.”

The next few hours were awkward and involved a lot of fumbling and blushing, but Leonard had never felt more like a piece of art than he did beneath Jim’s lips.


	10. age reversal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Age-reversal sexytimes!

Jim rolled over in his bed and looked down the sleeping length of his roommate beside him. No, technically Starfleet did not require or approve or have knowledge of roommates sleeping in the same bed, but what the Admiralty didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Besides, Jim reasoned, they were both old enough to be making their own decisions.  
Not that this had really worked out for them so well in the past. Jim Kirk, twenty-eight years old, branded a two time loser by his criminal record, and going nowhere fast in the wake of his daddy’s body being spread throughout the stars on the day of his birth. Leonard McCoy, twenty-one years old, married and divorced by twenty, absent daddy to a baby girl he’d accidentally fathered two months before he graduated high school. Educated decisions weren’t exactly their forte.

It didn’t stop Jim from running his fingertips down the stretch of rib-curved skin on Bones’ side, stopping to trace the outline of his perfect little belly button as he laid his palm over flat skin. Bones was young and inexperienced and so fucked up when it came to love that Jim couldn’t help but use his own shaky heart to steer him back on track. And, boy, did Bones ever drive like a dream.

Jim slid down the soft, warm body beside him and pressed open mouthed kisses to each new inch of skin he shifted white sheets away from. Bones stirred, face unlined with stress and beautiful as ever in sleep, but didn’t wake up. Well, Jim thought to himself with a grin, not his brain, anyways. His dick, however? That was a different story. 

This was Jim’s favourite thing about fucking someone who’d barely breached their 20s. Bones was young, horny, and eager to please. And easy to please. Also just easy. Now, Jim had never once taken any sort of advantage of Bones, in part because he had no doubt Bones could kick his ass six ways to Sunday, but mostly because he loved the damn kid so much it made his heart burst. So he took his time and showed Bones what it was like to be in love with someone because you wanted to be instead of because you had been thrown together with a child you didn’t know how to raise. 

It didn’t take him long to realize that Bones was young and a little naive about the world, yes, but he was a gentleman through and through - which meant, apparently, that holding hands, kissing cheeks, and paying for dinner was all part of the package when dating Leonard McCoy. But Jim? Jim was no southern gentleman. No, he was born in the stars, where danger and beauty and wildness was bred. And dangerous, beautiful, and wild he was.

Bones didn’t even shift when Jim mouthed at his half hard, smooth cock and nosed affectionately at his balls. This was fairly typical of Bones, to be entirely truthful. Bones, while a father and halfway through his medical residency at age 21, was still trapped in a barely-not-a-teenager body and that meant sleeping like the dead for twelve hours a night. Jim didn’t mind. Bones was warm and comfortable and didn’t have any objections to being wakened up early if it was at the hands of Jim’s lips on his dick.

So Jim sucked lazy kisses into the side of his best friend’s cock and pressed his cheek sleepily into Bones’ thigh. He dragged his own erection along the thin cotton sheets and hummed with pleasure at the friction.

“Bones,” he whispered, rolling his friend’s balls along his tongue. “Wake up. I’m horny and you’re asleep.”

He watched Bones’ face come awake, eyes blinking blearily as he looked around the room. In the moments before he fully gained consciousness, Bones always looked impossibly young. Innocent, confused, and without a single care in the world - and it drove Jim crazy.

“Mornin’, darlin’,” Bones groaned sleepily as he stretched, rolling his hips up into Jim’s chin almost pointedly. Jim obliged him with a quick bob of his mouth down the length of Bones’ dick, earning himself a pleased moan. “You started without me.”

“Wouldn’t have to if you didn’t sleep like the dead - meaning, forever.”

“I’m a growing boy,” Bones grunted, reaching down to smooth his fingers through Jim’s wild bed hair and guiding him back to the waiting erection beneath his chin. Jim grinned.

“Yeah, you are,” he leered as he grabbed two handfuls of Bones’ ass and squeezed. 

“Oh, for the love of - ” Bones rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna lay there all day or do I get to put my dick in your ass soon?”

“Patience, Bones, patience.”

“No time for patience, old man.”

“Watch your tongue,” Jim scolded with a smirk. “Or I might have to put it to better use.”

“If you insist.”

Jim just laughed, crawled up his best friend’s body, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

“I love you, kid,” he said softly. Bones smiled back.

“I love you, too.”


	11. first time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones is concerned about the hygiene issues that putting his fingers in Jim's ass bring up. It doesn't last long.

Leonard H McCoy was no well-practiced savant in the art of sexual pleasure, not like James T Kirk claimed to be. He’d married right out of high school, had sweet, quiet sex with his pretty wife a couple times a week, and landed his divorced and now sexless ass in a Starfleet Academy dorm room all before the age of twenty-eight. He’d had sex with one woman in his whole life and almost every single time they’d done it, she’d laid back and he’d done his damn best to give her the baby she so wanted.  
He’d never gone down on her, she’d gone down on him once after he showered, and they’d never, ever put their hands anywhere terribly unsanitary. 

Needless to say, Leonard McCoy - now Bones - had been positively petrified at the very idea of having sex with Jim Kirk. He could only imagine the things Jim would like that he’d only ever heard about second hand from embarrassed patients. He could only imagine what Jim might want to do to his body - or want Bones to do to him.

So when Jim pushed him up against the door of their dorm and begging Bones to fuck him and fuck him hard, there was a moment of sheer panic. Fuck him? Fuck him where? Not - Jesus, Bones thought with horror, surely he didn’t mean - ?

But barely five seconds later, Jim was naked on their mattress with his ass in the air and he looked so goddamned desperate that Bones was left with too-tight pants and shaking hands before he even knew what hit him. After several moments of nervous gulping and awkward throat-clearing, he stuttered out something about getting some gloves and lube, to which Jim snorted, called him an uptight wannabe urologist, and tossed a tube of KY at him. 

It took Bones far longer than his pride would allow him to admit before he could stomach the thought of sticking his fingers inside Jim Kirk’s asshole and when he finally did it, his eyes were closed and he was grimacing at the possibilities that lay in his future. Yeah, this whole concept of having filthy, unsanitary sex with Jim was grossing him out a little, but the prospect of seeing Jim’s face when he came was enough to make him get over it.

So was the sound that burst forth from Jim’s lips when Bones’ fingers breached the tight ring of muscle. It had him pulling furiously at the zipper of his jeans with his free hand, while the other curled two fingers expertly towards where he knew Jim’s prostate would be. All of a sudden, this wasn’t unsanitary or filthy, but it was very, very hot. 

All he wanted to do was make Jim do that again and again and again. So he fingered his best friend relentlessly, soaking up the sounds and memorizing every desperate thrust of Jim’s hips into open air in search of friction. He was delirious with arousal, something he had never experienced in his life, but was very eager to continue experiencing. So when Jim sobbed out his name and Bones watched his balls tighten and his pretty red cock twitch and come, it was all Bones could do to cry out Jim’s name and feel his own cock bob and empty itself onto Jim’s perfect ass, untouched.

Leonard McCoy may have had tidy, quiet sex with only one women in his lifetime, but he definitely had plans to change that statistic.


	12. without you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fame means nothing if there's not someone to keep you sane. Jim reminds Bones of that.

Jim comes home to a suitcase by the door and the love of his life wearing a jacket on the couch, the flash of cameras still blurring his vision and the smile he owed the press still fading from his face. It stops him cold, dripping wet from the cold, early March downpour outside their apartment just off campus.  
“Bones,” he croaks out. “Where are you going?”

He asks, but he already knows. Bones isn’t going anywhere particular. He’s just going away from here.

“I’m leaving.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t know the answer to that one. All he knows is that he’s moments from being torn apart, but all he can think of is that he’s hurt the only person he’s ever loved. And he doesn’t even know how.

“I’m tired, Jim. I’m tired of coming home to an empty apartment, tired of seeing your face more often on a magazine than I do in person, tired of watching you live a life of glamour and fame - all because you lucked out, saved the world, and decided I’m not enough for you anymore.”

Bones is standing now, fists clenched at his side as he rants. Jim savours the familiar snap from quiet and fuming to loud and blowing off steam. When Bones starts yelling, he knows he’s still got a chance. He strides up to his best friend and straightens the collar of Bones’ rain jacket, collecting his thoughts as he does so. He doesn’t let go until Bones shrugs him off, and does so then solely to pull him in closer.

“Is that what you think? That I’ve moved on to better things? Because let me tell you a story, Bones,” Jim whispers. “A story about a boy who spent his whole life trying to be nothing - and succeeding. The boy didn’t have a thing on this planet to live for, until one day a man dared him to do better. That boy sat down on a shuttle to California and met the man who’d turn him from nothing into something with just a scowl that made him crave another. And those men spent the next three years at each other’s sides, fighting for their right to be somebody and for each other.

"And that boy made good on his promise to do better, with no small amount of luck and too many brushes with death, but he never forgot how good the world looked from a shitty dorm with bad mattresses and that weird stain on the ceiling. Because everything looked better when he had that man from the shuttle at his side.

"Bones, Pike taught me that glory and the extraordinary are always beautiful, but nobody’s ever made me see beauty in the simple things quite like you do. Without you, everything I have now is worth so much less. Don’t you ever think you’re not enough for me. Christ, you are so much more.”

Bones doesn’t leave that night. He stays and they talk and Jim makes up months of quiet drifting with words he was never quite sure how to say. 

Bones doesn’t leave any other night, either. He stays for good.


	13. sad angsty miscommunication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maya asked for it

Okay but get this, what if Bones starts seeing someone on the Enterprise sometime around the middle of their first five year mission? That’s long enough for he and Jim to have settled deeply into new best friend routines on the ship after getting used to the newness of constant space travel. Suddenly, gamma shift movie time and dinner after their shifts become the time when Jim finds himself with extra time to fill out his paperwork and write detailed essays on tactics and galaxy class starship defence. Months and months of this go by and in no time at all, he’s seeing Bones once or twice a week for an update on medical supplies or injury reports. He hasn’t talked about anything outside of work in several weeks and he doesn’t see an end in sight. It’s okay, he reasons, because Bones is still his best friend, even if they don’t see each other much anymore.

When Bones suggests they grab dinner after alpha shift one day and Jim is genuinely surprised and turns him down almost out of shock, he’s a little confused. He watches Jim a little more closely over the next few weeks and notices a worrisome pattern. Jim goes to his shift on the bridge, makes his rounds of the ship for any reports, picks away at his dinner, works out in the gym for a solid two hours, and retires to his quarters to do god knows what every single day. In two weeks, Bones doesn’t see him smile or talk to anyone about non-captain related things even once.

He doesn’t know what to say, because he hardly ever sees Jim anymore, he’s so busy. So he doesn’t say anything. He goes about his day to day until things go bad with Lily and they break up. That’s when he goes to Jim because they’re best friends, even if they don’t see each other all the time. And Jim welcomes him back with a weak smile and a glass of bourbon strong enough to make him forget her pretty smile and bright eyes. 

Several more months of a friendship so easy to sink back into go by and when Lily starts dating again, he figures it’s safe for him to do the same, so he asks Carol Marcus to coffee on the observation deck. The next day, when Carol is in his shower and he’s smiling up at the ceiling of his quarters, there’s a knock on his door and he throws on some pants to answer it. Jim is standing there, pink in the face and holding a box of clothes and PADDs and a half empty bottle of bourbon. He hands it to Bones and mutters something about not wanting him to forget where all his stuff was again before turning on his heel and darting out of there before Bones can get a single word in.

It leaves him confused and he’s still holding the box when Carol comes out of the shower and asks him what he’s holding. When he tells her it’s a box of his things Jim has just dropped off, she surprises him with sad eyes and a concerned hand on his shoulder, asking him if it’s still that new and if he needs some more time. That only serves to boggle him further and she explains that she understands it’s happened before, when they broke up over a year ago and he dated Lily Peters for a few months, but she’d known they had gotten back together a while ago after he and Lily broke up. She’d assumed they had split again when he asked her for coffee yesterday, though she was surprised Jim had taken him back at all after how hurt he had been the first time.

It all slowly settles into a sensical awareness when he learns that people think he and Jim were together. He thinks back and sees Jim nervous and easily flustered when confronted with the possibility of spending time together on the rare occasion Bones wasn’t busy with Lily, sees him quiet and unsure of himself, more likely to be found in his quarters doing paperwork than smiling with his crew. He thinks about how easily he slipped back into their constant companionship when he and Lily broke up, but how Jim was tentative and awkward and didn’t smile all the way at first. He thinks about telling Jim he was going to ask Carol out yesterday and seeing the quick, quiet transformation of Jim’s genuine smile into a polite one with well-wishes on his lips. 

And then he thinks about Jim bringing the things he slowly moved into Jim’s quarters back over this morning, embarrassed and reserved like he wasn’t sure if he should be doing this or not and couldn’t bear to be questioned on his motives.

Son of a bitch, he thinks to himself, horror and shame settling around his heart as he realizes what he has done. He’s made Jim think he’s a substitute for love, only necessary when Bones is alone, and he has no idea how he’s going to fix that. Because if there’s one thing Jim’s been told his whole life, it’s that he’s the consolation prize, not the trophy, and he’s always believed it.

He allows himself five minutes to collect his shame and his guilt before setting out to do what he’s always claimed is his job - heal the wounds of people in suffering.

: : : :

Jim finds himself curbing a full scale meltdown when he returns to his own quarters, now empty of all evidence that Bones was ever a part of his life -  _again_  - when there’s a beep at his door indicating that someone wants in, so he gulps down air and quickly splashes water on his face to wash away the heat before opening it up. Bones is on the other side and he looks utterly distraught, which sends Jim’s heart racing for a completely different reason. He’s not panicking for his own loss now, he’s terrified that someone has done something to Bones and they are about to regret it, if he has a say in the matter.

But Bones pushes past him and starts babbling about love and how blinding it can be and that he’s sorry, so sorry, he didn’t see what he was doing sooner and, god, Jim, can you ever forgive me? Except Jim doesn’t know what’s happening, Bones has done nothing wrong  _ever_ , and he can’t see what he’s supposed to be fixing right now because it appears that Bones is trying to fix him, which is preposterous. That dynamic is completely wrong. Jim’s feelings don’t have anything to do with his safety or ability to captain the Enterprise, so Bones has no business feeling obligated to fix them. Jim, on the other hand, is shaking apart because he doesn’t know how to help his best friend and that is completely unacceptable.

He’s only necessary until he’s not useful, after all.

He tries to tell that to Bones without sounding like a weak little child throwing a pity party for himself, but it all comes out wrong and the words “I’m sorry” and “please stay” have no business in this conversation, but he says them anyway and they break Bones’ heart, Jim can see it on his face.

Before he can stop himself, he’s pouring out all the things he do, all the things he’s perfected in the unending hours he’s spent alone and unwanted, hoping these things will make him somehow enough to make Bones want to stay. He understands that Bones just needs him when there’s no one else, but,  _god_ , wouldn’t it be great if they could be friends  _all the time_? He thinks that would be unprecedented, which is why he lists off how to Admiralty is impressed with his efficient captaincy, how he’s written two textbooks on tactics and starship defence for the Academy this year, how he’s good at things,  _he is_ , so please stay?

He says Carol’s funny and beautiful and smart and he understands that Bones wants those things, but Jim’s good at his job and doesn’t really need that much attention, just a little, and that counts for something, right? He’s still babbling when Bones takes his shaking hands and leads him to the couch in his quarters to push him down onto a seat. He kneels between Jim’s bouncing knees and holds onto his biceps, stroking up and down quite soothingly, if Jim could really focus on anything but Bones’ big hazel eyes looking at him sadly.

Bones tells him he’s funny and beautiful and smart, too, and he’s also really good at his job, but Bones hasn’t been giving him anything at all, not even the simple reassurance that he’s still important to anyone at all, which isn’t that hard to do, really. He explains that he’s sorry he left Jim so alone and uncertain and if Jim has any sense he’ll toss him to the curb and forget his pathetic ass, but Jim has always been a little bit reckless and instead of telling Bones he’s not forgiven, he collapses onto Bones’ shoulders and holds on for dear life.

It’s been a long time since someone held onto him and he shakes at the unfamiliarity of it, but holds on and on and on because who knows when the next time will happen? He’s happy with this, right now, here with the person who is promising him again that he’ll always be here. Bones thinks this is a start and Jim thinks it’s the end, but then again, Jim’s always been predisposed to look at things as endings rather than beginnings because that’s usually how it really goes.

He doesn’t think he’s too upset about this particular ending. This one seems to have a pretty nice start at the end.


	14. newlyweds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cisfem!bones waking jim up on their first day of married classes

“Jim.”

“Mmhmm?”

“Wake up.”

“Nope.”

“It’s Monday.”

“Ew. No it’s not.”

Bones rolled her eyes and kneed Jim in the side again in another futile attempt to wake him up so they wouldn’t be late for class. It was, after all, their very last semester at the Academy before they would graduate and take positions on a starship. They’d made it almost three whole years without dying from early classes. Surely another four months wouldn’t kill them.

“Stop doing that, it’s annoying,” Jim grumbled, burrowing further into the blankets and doing his best to avoid waking up. Bones suppressed a chuckle and mostly succeeded.

“You’re going to be late for class,” she threatened. Jim huffed and rolled over, blinking up at her blearily. “You don’t even have to shower. I’ll spray you down with deodorant if you’ll just  _stand up_. Uniform, coffee, teeth, let’s go!”

“Vacation’s over, huh?” he sighed. She smiled down at him sweetly, affection and irritation warring for her attention for a moment before she bent down and kissed his forehead gently.

“Yeah, darlin’,” she murmured. “But look at it this way - first day of married classes!”

He sat up onto is elbows and grinned.

“First day of married cafeteria lunch,” he added excitedly. “And married after school coffee. And married takeout Monday. And married after school sex. And married movie Monday. Lots of new married things today!”

“So many things,” she teased, running her hands through his wild hair as he sat all the way up and kissed her eagerly. When they broke apart, he kissed both of her cheeks with a grin and then bumped his nose into hers. “Alright, Mr. Husband, get up and put some pants on.”

“I’m such a lucky guy,” Jim chattered as he scurried around looking for spare uniform parts and got dressed. He smacked into the wall as he tugged on a sock, grinning at her the whole time. “I’ve got such a hot wife.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, hell, yeah.”

“Well, your hot wife is thinking that after school married sex might actually turn into all night and half the morning married sex, so get to class and make sure you’re home before 6.”

“Got it, Bones,” he grinned as he bent down to hoist her up around his hips for a moment in a good morning/goodbye kiss with a lot of arms and probably too much tongue for pre-7am. “Love you. See you at lunch.”

“Me, too. See you.”

And with that, he darted out the door on the way to class.

Well, Bones thought to herself smugly. Let it never be said that this hot wife can’t motivate her hot husband.


	15. more angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim finds Bones crying after the events of, well, Jim's death.

Jim is used to the steady hum of energy in his veins. He’s been programmed to  _move move move_  since he was a little boy living in his father’s shadow and under his stepfather’s easily-provoked fist. His DNA twists into his muscles, his joints, his heart, and on it is written  _run_. It’s been years since he’s had to run from anything, but the impulse has always been there.

It’s not now.

Now, he’s reached the end of the line and fallen off the edge, only to find himself at the gates of - whatever - without permission to pass through them. Bones had seen to that. He’d fought Jim’s willing descent into death with tooth and nail, clinging onto the last bit of James Tiberius Kirk that wasn’t quite ready to leave the known universe behind. Jim had woken up to simmering anger behind a light smile and gentle ribbing.

And things hadn’t been the same at all.

Bones was angry. Bones was distant. Bones was cold. And the hum of energy telling Jim to run had stopped.

Instead, there was a deep, heavy resonance in his bones that was lulling him into permanence. He wasn’t going anywhere. All of the things he loved were here. His ship. His crew. His whole life. His Bones.

There was no reason to run, he’d realized, and that was the first time it had ever been true.

So when he lay awake in his biobed, alone and uncomfortable and itching for peace in his new little home, he swung his legs over the side despite having been told not to leave it unless he was dying or had to piss. He followed the familiar blue line on the floor that took him to Bones’ office and held his stupid ass-baring gown closed with one fist while bracing against the walls with the other. When he finally reached the door to the office, he punched in the usual code and found himself denied entry. He punched in his captain’s override and the door swooshed open.

Bones sat at his desk, head in his hands and a paper cup full to brimming of honey brown liquid. His shoulders were shaking. His uniform was stained and wrinkled. Jim heard and intake of breath, wet and quick and pained, and immediately knew what was happening.

“Bones,” he whispered from the door. The doctor swung around in his chair to stare at his captain and best friend, showing Jim the reddened eyes and wet cheeks he’d been dreading but expecting. “What’s wrong?”

There was a long, pregnant pause as Bones stared at him blankly, not bothering to wipe his cheeks dry or cover the evidence. Jim squirmed under the scrutination, but didn’t look away.

“You died, you bastard.”

It hits Jim in the chest like a phaser set to kill and he finds himself on his knees in front of his Bones before he quite registers he’s made a move from the door. He wraps his arms around Bones’ middle and presses his cheek to cool, blue polyester. The feel of strong arms around his shoulders and lips against his hair cause his eyes to droop closed.

He’ll let Bones hold onto him as long as they both need it - because they do, so much.

It would be a cold day in hell when Jim risked leaving Bones alone again.


End file.
